Category Archives: Android

Jun 30
3

Red Foundry Ranked as a Top Chicago App Developer

By on June 30, 2015 | Android, iOS, Mobile App Development, Quotes, UI/UX Design | No Comments

Recently, Red Foundry was named a Top Chicago App Developer by research firm Clutch, based in Washington, DC.  Clutch is known for offering both objective and extensive research coverage on mobile app development companies in various geographies.

Red Foundry is excited to be positioned so highly among the other companies in the Chicagoland area.  In fact, over twenty app development companies were included in the study with Red Foundry topping the list.

Clutch analyzed Red Foundry’s previous work, client base, and overall ability to deliver on development projects, to map us against the other Chicago-based firms on their Leaders Matrix.

Clutch Leaders Matrix

However, the most rewarding outcome of this study were the client interviews that Clutch conducted with five of our clients.  One of the quotes that particularly stands out came from a current client of ours, FanAngel:

FanAngelClient-Quote

We’re always excited to be recognized externally for our work but really enjoy being able to take our years of experience in building amazing mobile apps and package it into solutions for clients like FanAngel while lowering the complexity and risk of building killer custom native mobile apps.

To learn more about how we were evaluated by Clutch check out the Clutch Methodology or browse through the overwhelmingly positive Red Foundry Reviews as provided by our clients.

May 01
2

eBooks: Disruptive Publishing

By on May 1, 2014 | Android, iOS, Mobile App Development | No Comments

Mills & Boon, the undisputed UK market leader in romance fiction publishing (think Harlequin romance novels), has decided to become disruptive by developing its own app that allows their fans to read eBooks on the go.

Digital supermarkets run by companies like Apple, Amazon and Kobo currently dominate the eBook market, taking a big slice of the profits-pie each time a book is downloaded.

In an effort to streamline the publisher-to-reader process, Mills & Boon has created their own app reader that users can easily download to their iOS or Android mobile device. The company is hoping that, since more people are reading eBooks on their smartphones and tablets, their big gamble will pay off.

The app lets users read eBooks from their own eBookshelf on the Mills & Boon website, as well as ePub and PDF books from retailers and libraries around the world. Electronic publishing has allowed Mills & Boon to double its output. It now releases more than 100 eBooks per month, more than in print, and sells more e-books than physical books. According to Tim Cooper, digital and marketing director for the publisher, “digital lends itself to the habitual nature of our content. Our readers finish reading one and they can download the next.” Author Sharon Kendrick’s opinion is similar: “[Mills & Boon] are an intense reading experience, and they can be read quickly. People read four to five in a few days so that’s a lot of books to carry around.”

But will they be successful and will other publishers follow suit? Tune in tomorrow…

 

Jul 15
1

Recent App Launches

By on July 15, 2013 | Android, iOS, Mobile App Development | No Comments

At Red Foundry, we see hundreds of apps using our platform technology get published every month. Here are a couple that we’re really excited about!

Panasonic Healthcare Division

A full digital sales tool, including product data, comparisons, and custom quoting for the iPad. Increasing productivity and sales, using Red Foundry.

Wine Enthusiast Magazine

The long awaited update to Wine Enthusiast magazine, with an all-new beautiful design, is coming soon! And it’s not just for wines anymore – you can read the latest reviews for spirits and beers as well. Also, you can win badges and discounts on wine and accessories just by recording your thoughts on what you’ve tasted lately. Drinking, gamified? Nuff said.

Jan 16
1

Top 5 Reasons you should have a mobile SDK

By on January 16, 2013 | Android, iOS, Mobile App Development, Mobile SDK | No Comments

The ability to distribute a service across mobile devices and applications is driving the explosion in mobile commerce and application design.

The API Services and Directory site ProgrammableWeb.com lists 7,000 Application Program Interfaces (API)s and adds more than 300 the list every month.  They’ve made the case that every company can and will have an API. The development of robust APIs has been instrumental to the explosive growth of companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter. The key motivation for investing in this technology is that it helps developers work with other companies to create tools that help improve engagement and conversions.

So if your service has an API, do you also need a mobile SDK? In short, the answer is “yes,” especially if mobile is strategic in your company’s growth. At Red Foundry we partner with a wide variety of service providers and they site the following top five reasons for creating a mobile SDK:

  1. Close more sales.  The biggest reason to create a mobile SDK is to help sales and business development staffs close key deals faster. The SDK do this by helping move the process of integrating services along more quickly.
  2. Speed up deployment. Time is a critical cost factor because the integration services are performed by mobile engineers with a highly valued skill sets. Having an SDK can help them simplify their projects and enable integration of APIs that require complex use cases that are complemented by standard on-client processing for mobile devices. A SDK greatly simplifies this integration effort.
  3. Increase security. Security may be a critical issue. In the case of large ad networks, SDKs are often required in order to reduce programmatic fraud. SDKs can be used to encrypt portions of the user interface (UI) to secure data quality. Mobile payments processing requires PCI compliance and some platforms may have specific requirements for storing passwords, etc. A SDK can help provide that needed security.
  4. Reduce bad code & ensure best practices Developers are rarely perfect. Even the best can make mistakes. Errors in how data is passed to back end services can cause critical issues and delays that impact the entire business. Inefficient code by a single developer can take down services for across the enterprise. The SDK can go a long way to reducing bad or inefficient code and its impact on critical systems. The right SDK can further insure the right business rules and practices are in place across their entire publisher network.
  5. Control over your brand. Control over your brand with the UI of the publisher’s app may be critical to your business.  Developers aren’t designers; an SDK will allow you to lock down critical portions of the interface while retaining analytics needed to see how the users interact with your service within the publisher’s application.

So SDKs help publishers and the developers that work for them integrate with the service providers APIs more quickly. That saves time, saves money, and helps close more deals. They make life simpler for the developer, insure best practices, and keep critical systems secure. So why doesn’t every service provider with an API also offer a SDK?

Bitnami